When you have flexible thinking you can more easily consider other perspectives, solutions, and ideas. You can handle changes that you don’t control. Difficulties with this executive function can not only cause internal stress, it can impact relationships throughout life, well into adulthood.  

Consider how these flexible thinking issues may affect relationships. 

Being Able to Handle Change

If Mona has always played with dolls when she is with her friend Lucy, and Lucy is not in the mood to play with them one day, this could cause a lot of distress for Mona if she has difficulty handling changes. She may decide that she no longer wants to play with Lucy, or she may lash out at her in reaction to the suggestion of a change.

Not only can it affect peer relationships, it can affect the health of familial relationships. If one child in the family has difficulty with change, siblings may miss out on opportunities that don’t fit within the rigid parameters set by the affected child’s anxiety (such as a family vacation). Everyone in the family may walk on eggshells to avoid triggering the affected child’s anxieties related to change. 

Having Global Thinking 

A child has an issue with global thinking when everything is seen at the extremes, as all good or all bad (also called black-and-white thinking). Gray areas don’t exist. 

It impacts social relationships because relationships and human behavior may be seen as all good or all bad, or people may be seen as all good or all bad.

Take Colin, for example. He is a teenager new to dating and sent his new girlfriend a text message. He can see that she read his message, but she hasn’t yet responded. Colin’s global thinking makes him think that her lack of an immediate response means that she is breaking up with him. His difficulty with flexible thinking makes considering other alternatives challenging, like she is simply busy doing something, her phone battery is about to die, etc. In reality she was just at a family function and got distracted and busy before she could respond.

This kind of thinking not only causes him internal distress, it causes him to lash out at her, telling her that she doesn’t care about him, because he perceives her lack of response as a threat to the relationship. This kind of emotional turmoil is not healthy for a relationship and ultimately does cause his girlfriend to end things. 

Sarah is a high school student who forgot to turn in an assignment on time, although she did it well in advance of the due date. She feels shame about not being seen as the responsible person she typically is and does not even attempt to turn it in late, though there may actually be a possibility that she can still get credit for it, at least partially. 

Her global thinking has her believing that she is a poor student in that class and that her teacher has a poor opinion of her now, regardless of any other work she has done. This affects her willingness to approach her teacher with questions or to seek help, and she puts less effort into her work (because if she believes she is already a “loser” to this teacher then what’s the point of trying to do well now?). Now her teacher is confused why there was a sudden change in her performance in class and why her grade has dropped significantly.  

A Symptom of Not Having Flexible Thinking: Making Assumptions or Jumping to Conclusions

Making assumptions about what other people think causes a lot of problems in relationships. This is a common issue when people have flexible thinking difficulties that cause them to think in black and white terms, just as it was for Colin and Sarah. Anxiety about what they think may or may not be going on can cause people to jump to conclusions despite a lack of evidence, and they often jump to the worst possible conclusion. (See this blog for more information about how thoughts are not truths.) The people on the receiving end of their reactions, based on false assumptions, may lose patience or feel like they are being punished as a result of the other person’s anxieties. 

Being Able to Have Self Compassion

Flexible thinking difficulties don’t just affect relationships with others, but your relationship with yourself. It did for Sarah, who saw herself as a failure in the class due to one mistake that her teacher likely noticed, but it certainly wasn’t in his thoughts as much as Sarah thought it was. 

Often people will apologize for everything they perceive as a possible issue, no matter how small it is.  It may have a negative effect on peer relationships because some people may find it hard to be around people who need constant reassurance that the relationship is fine after they react to their incorrect assumptions. When people can think flexibly they are more likely to be able to give themselves compassion and grace because they understand that there are a variety of sizes of mistakes and most people don’t have this same black-and-white thinking. 

Address Flexible Thinking For Healthy Relationships

Having healthy relationships is important throughout life. This is why it’s so important to work on flexible thinking. Social relationships affect so many parts of life at home, work, and school. Being able to think flexibly helps people see things from a different perspective, avoid jumping to conclusions, and handle changes. It can also help people have a healthy relationship with themselves.

Start this process when children are young. You can do this with The Stress Detective Flexibility Files workbook.